Dartmouth College Library Bulletin

Thesis Topics: Ready-Made

WORD PROCESSING

VIRGINIA L. CLOSE

WORDS fascinate. New words spring forth regularly from every aspect of life.
They develop in a variety of ways. There is the language of politics, of a
trade or profession. We refer to the jargon of sports, of the computer world,
of the library profession. Words pass in and out of use. Years pass. A reader
notes a word, an expression, in a text and asks, `What does this mean! What is
its origin!' Sometimes these queries can be solved, but at other times they
seem to defy solving. Thus, Michael Arlen in his novel of the early twenties in
England, The Green Hat (1924), referred to a 'Dorothy chair.' What is a Dorothy
chair! Where did this term come from! So far, this is an unsolved (for the
writer) query.

Words demand documenting. Literary writers dot their works with allusions,
names, and terms that earnest students and librarians must puzzle out. So we
have the monumental Oxford English Dictionary with its tracking of terms
through time, complete with quoted sources documenting the etymology. There are
other smaller, more specialized volumes.

This curiosity about words, phrases, and expressions goes back long years. One
of the more interesting special journals is the English publication Notes
and Queries, which began publishing in 1849. From that point onward until
1947 the Library has the very detailed series indexes which beleaguered
reference librarians can consult for odd words, phrases, quotations, and names
and, joyfully, find that someone had explained them in that journal. The annual
indexes are much less detailed and helpful though there is still an entry for
Words and Phrases.

Taking new words as a specific interest, we find this a fertile area of study.
The journal American Speech, beginning in 1941, included a column 'Among
the New Words.' In 1991 the Cambridge University Press published Fifty Years
Among the New Words. A Dictionary of Neologisms, 1941-1991. Edited by John
Algeo, the volume reprints the 113 installments of 'Among the New Words' that
appeared in those fifty years, and has added an index to them. Moreover, there
is an introduction discussing what new words are, how they are found, and
including a section on the making of new words: 'Creating, Borrowing,
Combining, Shortening, Blending, Shifting, and Source unknown' (pp. 4-19).
Another section titled 'The Motives for New Words' (pp. 14-16) is especially
interesting and offers to the imaginative student a departure point for an
interesting paper.

In the Reference Room is the newly-arrived volume The Oxford Dictionary of
New Words. A Popular Guide to Words in the News, compiled by Sara Tulloch
and published in 1991 by the Oxford University Press. She writes in the
preface that the term acid rain '. . . was first written about in the 1850's
and the greenhouse effect was investigated in the late nineteenth
century, although it may not have acquired this name until the 1920's . . .'
(p. 5). Close by is the Barnhart series: The Barnhart Dictionary of New
English Since 1963, published in 1973, The Second Barnhart Dictionary of
New English, published in 1980, and The Third Barnhart Dictionary of New
English, which appeared in 1990.1 Supplementing the Barnhart
volumes is The Barnhart Dictionary Companion (v. I, 1982+ ), a quarterly
in which the words defined have substantial entries. A cumulative index for the
years 1982-1985 of the Companion notes (p. vii) that 'The size of the
Dictionary Companion has expanded from year to year to the point that it
reports more than 1,200 new words, new meanings, and changes in usage in its
pages annually....' Awesome! 2

Should one wish to expand his/her knowledge of words still further, there is
the journal Verbatim. The Language Quarterly, which the Library has for
Volume 3, No. 2 (September 1976) onward. New Hampshire's Richard Lederer, who
writes about language, is among the contributors. One can also, if desired,
make the acquaintance of Maledicta. The International Journal of Verbal
Aggression, which, on its inside front cover, notes that it '...
specializes in uncensored studies and collections of "offensive" words and
expressions, in all languages. . . .' Maledicta began publishing in
1977.

The numerous ways in which one can come at the study of words offers something
to a variety of interests. The materials noted here are but a brief sampling.
Maledicta demonstrates how really specialized interests can become.
Equally well documented as new words is the examination of place names and
personal names. The Library Bulletin treated names in the same issue
(April 1968, pp. 82-85) as public opinion polls. Since then the Sealock
Bibliography of Place-Name Literature, United States and Canada, now in
its third edition, 1982, has been expanded upon. This additional coverage, from
1980-1988, was compiled by Margaret S. and Stephen D. Powell and appears in the
journal Names. 3